Obama Administration Calls for the ‘Human Rights’ of Jihadi Murderers

Nigerian government is criticized by the U.S. for going after mass murdering terrorists.

by Raymond Ibrahim

PJ Media

It’s well known that whenever jihadis attack and slaughter innocent people — especially Christians — the Obama administration tries to ignore or whitewash. Lesser known, however, is that whenever foreign governments try to subdue the jihadis, the Obama administration objects and calls for the “human rights” of the terrorists.

Nigerian warplanes struck militant camps in the northeast on Friday [5/17] in a major push against an Islamist insurgency, drawing a sharp warning from the United States to respect human rights and not harm civilians. Troops used jets and helicopters to bombard targets in their biggest offensive since the Boko Haram group launched a revolt almost four years ago to establish a breakaway Islamic state and one military source said at least 30 militants had been killed. But three days after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the northeast, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a strongly worded statement saying: “We are … deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism.

Thus here is Kerry grandstanding about the “human rights” of Boko Haram, a jihadi group whose name means “Western Education is a Sin” — that is, a group whose very name embodies hostility for Western civilization. (Of course, it’s not surprising that the Obama administration overlooks Boko Haram’s animus for the West, considering that it was just revealed that “it is Obama administration policy to consider specifically Islamic criticism of the American system of government legitimate.”)

But what about the “human rights” of the victims of jihadi terror? In 2011, when Egypt’s Christians protested the constant attacks on their churches and the Egyptian military responded by massacring them at Maspero, including by running them over with armored vehicles, the White House then said nothing about “human rights,” declaring instead that “now is a time for restraint on all sides” — as if Egypt’s beleaguered and unarmed Christian minority needed to “restrain” itself against the nation’s military.

The group has bombed or burned hundreds of Christian churches, most when packed for service. The Christmas day church attacks — in 2010, 2011, and 2012 — which left hundreds of Christians dead or dismembered, are the tip of the iceberg of Boko Haram’s hate for Christianity. In the group’s bid to cleanse northern Nigeria of all Christian presence, it has threatened to poison the food eaten by Christians and “to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women.” The group frequently storms areas where Christians and Muslims are intermingled — from villages to colleges — and singles the Christians out before slitting their throats to cries of Allahu Akbar. Pregnant and elderly Christian women and children have been raped, enslaved, and slaughtered simply for being “infidels.”

The fact that Boko Haram’s motives are clear-cut and fueled by jihadi doctrine — the creation of an Islamic state that enforces Sharia law and is Christian-free — has not stopped the Obama administration from pointing to anything and everything else to rationalize its bloodlust.

The very next day after Boko Haram bombed Christian churches celebrating Easter in April 2012, killing 39 Christian worshippers, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said, “I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence” in Muslim-majority Nigerian areas where churches were and continue to be attacked.

As far as Bill Clinton is concerned, “inequality” and “poverty” are “‘what’s fueling all this stuff’” — a reference to Boko Haram’s anti-Christian jihad. Foreshadowing Kerry’s concern for the well-being of Islamic mass murderers, Clinton also said that“it is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence” — a suggestion that Nigeria’s government not retaliate in response to Boko Haram with any severity.

Talk of “poverty,” “inequality,” “grievance,” and the rest of the canards used by Western leaders to overlook Islamic violence blatantly ignores all the facts. Boko Haram began its jihad in earnest because a Christian won what was described as Nigeria’s freest and fairest elections. And Islamic law forbids non-Muslims from ruling over Muslims — not because they’re bad for the economy, but because they’re infidels.

The full name of Boko Haram is “Sunnis for [Islamic] Propagation and Jihad” — which doesn’t reflect any economic grievances. Their repeatedly stated goal is the establishment of a pure Sharia state in Nigeria. In other words, they are motivated by the same Islamic supremacism that is prompting jihadis all around the Islamic world to attack, kill, and displace infidels, leading to, among other travesties, a mass exodus of Christians.

And now, when the Nigerian government goes on the offensive to neutralize the terrorists responsible for countless inhuman atrocities, the Obama administration offers “a strongly worded statement” to defend their “human rights.”

Meanwhile, when such jihadis daily persecute and murder non-Muslims around the world — Christians at the top of the list — the only sound coming out of the White House is of crickets chirping.

Postscript: Following Kerry’s call to protect the “human rights” of Nigeria’s jihadi terrorists, Obama himself has just urged Myanmar to“halt violence against Muslims” and “move ahead with economic and political reforms” — all while omitting the fact that the government’s offensive is in response to violent, separatist Muslims, whose jihad has nothing to do with “economic and political reforms,” only the subjugation of infidels.

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About Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture.

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